Extracting aromatics from flowers

[Elite Engineer]

I'm going about the way of organic solvent extraction of aromatic compounds from flowers. However I'm unsure of the best way to extract the compounds, that is:

 

- Just place the flower petals in hexane for 2-3 days

 

or

 

- Chop up the flower petals to increase surface area and better solvent distribution to certain crevasses. However I worry this would release alot of gunk and debris

 

from the plant cells.

 

Thanks,

 

 

~EE

[studiot]

Try looking here

 

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=extraction+of+essential+oils

[Elite Engineer]

Try looking here

 

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=extraction+of+essential+oils

I've checked alot of sites, but most discuss steam distillation or, just mention organic solvent extraction, without any detailed discussions Thank you though!

[DrP]

I'd try without the chopping for the reasons you already gave... had similar experience before.... the solvent should still rip through plant pretty easily, so chopping it up is probably not needed and will give you debris. gl.

[GM11]

Solvent extraction gives you what is called concrete, steam gives you essential oil.

Soxhlet extraion is best to start from, use a polar solvent on a sample then a non polar one on another sample. TLC both results and work out the flavanoids etc by using the various wet tests on each spot. From there do a steam dist and TLC that, test as above, which ever gives the highest amount of what you want with the least rubbish thrown in is what you use to extract.

 

From that point you can then use column or HPLC to just grab exactly each component you want, master it and you can make serious money from things like roses.